Alvin Plantinga

Revised: Have you had someone say to you that the presence of evil in the world keep them from believing in a loving God. But, I have to ask them if they have really thought it through. For C. S. Lewis, the issue of evil initially led him into atheism. Later, he began to reason that if there is no God, then there is no such thing as evil either.

The number one lie that Christians are often confronted with is the argument that evil, pain, and suffering prove that there is no God, says author and apologist Mark Mittelberg.

Camus

Providing a rebuttal to the question of why God would allow evil can be challenging, said Mittelberg, who is the author of The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask and other books on defending the Christian faith.

The atheist view is that we, our being and our behaviors, are the products of biochemical reactions in our brains–even our morals and societal mores are the results of biochemical reactions. All our interactions are simply a result of biochemistry in our brains. Continue reading →

Dean Zimmerman and Alvin Plantinga discuss the ontological argument for the existence of God. After Kant‘s, and others’, critiques of Anselm, most philosophers regarded the ontological argument as a failed argument for theism–perhaps useful for theology, but not useful for demonstrating that God exists. However, in the 20th Century, Alvin Plantinga and others reworked the argument by incorporating modal logic. Plantinga’s version of the argument, while often confusing to non-philosophers, is relatively uncontroversial among philosophers today in terms of its logic and conclusion. By admitting the possibility of God, a standard theorem of modal logic leads to the conclusion that God exists. Atheists are quick to respond by denying the possibility of God in order to side-step the argument’s conclusion. But is it rational to make such a bold claim? That God cannot possibly exist?